'Oh no. I knew you would find it easy to console yourself.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'Never mind.'

'Are you insinuating that I am the sort of man who turns lightly from one woman to another—a mere butterfly who flits from flower to flower, sipping...?'

'Yes, if you want to know, I think you are a born sipper.'

Frederick started. The charge was monstrous.

'I have never sipped. And, what's more, I have never flitted.'

'That's funny.'

'What's funny?'

'What you said.'